England’s higher education regulator has found three “concerns” in a report on the University of Bedfordshire’s business and management courses, in the latest of its government-initiated investigations to be published.
The Office for Students said its investigation “identified three concerns that may relate to the University of Bedfordshire’s compliance with the OfS’s conditions of registration”: on “limited flexibility” for working students; on “limited central monitoring of student engagement with their course”, including those at risk of dropping out; and a lack of steps to address “low continuation rates”.
From 2016-17 to 2019-20, the non-continuation rate for students on Bedfordshire’s undergraduate business and management courses was 40.7 per cent, the OfS said.
The investigation was among eight announced by the OfS in May 2022, after a letter from ministers said they “would expect a significant number of investigations to be initiated” at larger universities falling short of the regulator’s new B3 quality baselines, which cover student continuation and completion, and graduate progression to “professional employment”.
